


You Deserve Everything

by lincyclopedia



Series: Asexual Headcanons [5]
Category: Check Please! (Webcomic)
Genre: Asexual Character, Established Relationship, Justin "Ransom" Oluransi is a Delicate Coral Reef, M/M, No Sex, No Smut, POV Third Person, POV Third Person Limited, Panic Attacks, Present Tense
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-10-26
Updated: 2020-10-26
Packaged: 2021-03-08 19:22:24
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,554
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27201739
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/lincyclopedia/pseuds/lincyclopedia
Summary: Holster thinks he and Ransom are ready to take their relationship to the next level, right until Ransom scoots away and starts apologizing. Turns out Ransom is asexual and hasn’t been treated well in the past. TW for a panic attack.
Relationships: Adam "Holster" Birkholtz/Justin "Ransom" Oluransi
Series: Asexual Headcanons [5]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1292294
Comments: 6
Kudos: 72





	You Deserve Everything

**Author's Note:**

> I’m aware that Ransom seems pretty excited about sex in canon. Please indulge me. Also, this fic contains a panic attack. Please be safe. Also, as is often the case when I write asexual characters, I'm deeply indebted to ["That's How the Light Gets In"](https://archiveofourown.org/works/1111980/chapters/2238934#workskin) by [sylviarachel](https://archiveofourown.org/users/sylviarachel/pseuds/sylviarachel).

Holster is kissing his way down Ransom’s stomach when Ransom goes entirely rigid for a few seconds and then scoots backward on the bed, away from Holster’s mouth. 

Holster looks up at Ransom. “Rans?”

“Sorry,” says Ransom, and even though Holster hears that word from him a lot—more than is probably healthy, because Ransom is definitely an over-apologizer—it still sticks out to him, the Canadian way the O says “oh” and not “ah.” “I’m sorry. I can’t. I’m so sorry.” 

“Rans, you don’t need to apologize.” Holster sits up and scoots toward Ransom, not sure whether a hug would be the right move right now. 

“Sorry,” says Ransom, and then: “Wait, shit. I just—I know I should. And I want to—I want to give you that. But I can’t. And I’m sorry. Shit.” 

“Rans,” says Holster, horrified at the “should” that just came out of Ransom’s mouth. “You don’t have to give me anything. There is no ‘should’ here. You don’t owe me anything and physical affection doesn’t work like that. It’s okay if you can’t. That’s not—that’s not why I love you, okay?”

Holster means it to be comforting, but somehow this is what tips Ransom over the edge into full-blown coral reef mode. Ransom tucks his knees up to his chest and starts rocking back and forth, breath coming faster and shallower and faster and shallower until it barely seems like breathing at all. Holster watches helplessly for a couple of minutes and then realizes that, if this is sex-connected, Ransom might want his clothes back, so he says, “I’m going to find your clothes and bring them to you, and you can put them on if you want, or I can help you with that if you want to be dressed but can’t manage it by yourself. I’m going to stand up and walk away from the bed, but I’m not leaving; I promise. Okay?”

At Ransom’s wide-eyed nod, Holster gets up and turns on the light before looking for Ransom’s clothes. His shirt is flung over the desk chair and his pants are strewn across the floor. Holster brings both articles of clothing back to the bed and asks Ransom, “Do you want to put these on?”

Ransom nods but doesn’t move. 

“Can I help you put them on?” Holster asks when it becomes clear that Ransom won’t be moving on his own. 

Ransom nods, so Holster winds up gently wrestling him into first his shirt and then his pants. It’s harder to do this now, for Ransom, than it’s ever been to help a drunk teammate into or out of a jacket, not for any emotional reason but because Ransom seems utterly disconnected from the movements of his limbs right now, and Holster has to do all the work while hoping that he isn’t making anything worse. 

Eventually, multiple minutes after Holster has finished dressing Ransom, Ransom’s breathing finally evens out, little by little. The first words out of his mouth, when he can speak again, are once again a shuddering “I’m sorry.” 

“Rans, you don’t have anything to apologize for,” says Holster. “If anything, _I’m_ sorry for taking things too far.” 

Ransom shakes his head. “You had every right to expect tonight to end in sex, though,” he argues. “You deserve good things. You deserve _everything_. And I ruined it.” 

“No one deserves non-consensual sex,” Holster retorts, “and you didn’t ruin anything. You set a boundary I should have asked about, a boundary that you clearly needed. And _you_ deserve a relationship where your boundaries are respected. I want to give you that, if you want that from me. If you still trust me.” 

“Of course I trust you!” Ransom’s voice is suddenly loud. Much more quietly, he adds, “I just don’t understand why you still want me.” 

“Can I hug you?” Holster asks, because he is _aching_ and everything Ransom says breaks his heart a little more. Ransom nods hesitantly, so Holster asks, “Are you sure?”

“Yeah,” Ransom whispers. “Please.” 

Holster gathers Ransom up in a hug, resting his head on Ransom’s shoulder but deliberately restraining himself from kissing his neck. Ransom’s trembling slightly in his arms, and Holster tightens his grip just a bit, holding on for several more seconds before letting go. 

“You said you don’t understand why I still want you,” Holster says quietly. “Can I answer that? I don’t want to make things worse.” 

“You can answer that,” Ransom says. “If you want.” 

“I want to,” Holster replies. “I want you to know that you’re my best friend and the person I love most in the world. You’re so smart, and so good at hockey, and so good at being my friend. I want you to understand that you enrich my life by being yourself and that I love you for who you are. I want to keep being around you and talking to you and playing hockey with you and living with you and going to parties with you and all of that, if you’re okay with it. Sex would be extra. I’ve loved you for years without us having sex, and that hasn’t been a long-term ploy to get in your pants. I love everything we’ve done together for the past three and a half years. If that’s all we keep doing, that’s okay. We can be best bros and leave it at that. Or we can date but not sleep together. You’ve seemed to enjoy the times recently when we’ve kissed and cuddled—I mean, I hope I haven’t been reading that wrong.” 

“You haven’t,” Ransom whispers. “I’ve enjoyed that.” 

“Okay then,” says Holster. “So we can keep doing that. Date, live together, kiss, cuddle, talk, hang out, go to parties, play hockey. We can try to wind up in the same city next year, keep living together, see if it works. We don’t need to have sex to make any of the rest of that viable.” 

Ransom looks at his lap. “But—but you’ve been saying you love me.” 

“Because I do,” says Holster. 

“But people say that when they . . . _want_.” 

Holster bites back the question _Who do I need to murder?_ and instead says, very carefully, “Rans. I want you to feel safe and comfortable and calm and happy. Which is maybe too much to ask—I know you’re a delicate coral reef and I won’t ask you to try to be otherwise—but I definitely don’t want to force you into anything, ever. And I’m sorry that other people have.” 

Ransom puts his face in his hands and sobs. 

“Can I hug you?” Holster asks. 

Ransom lowers his hands and nods, so Holster pulls him close and rubs his back a bit. It horrifies him to think that Ransom has just gone around feeling unsafe for an indeterminate but probably long period of time, having relationships where consent hasn’t mattered and thinking that that was normal. Holster doesn’t really want Ransom to date anyone else ever again, but he knows that convincing Ransom that he deserves to feel safe in all of his relationships is more important than trying to hold on to this particular relationship. That even if Ransom eventually breaks up with him, if he can be remembered as someone who made Ransom feel safe and made Ransom less willing to settle for people who didn’t care about consent, that will be enough. 

The crying is over much more quickly than the panic attack was, and then Ransom is pulling back and wiping at his puffy eyes. “Sorry for making you deal with me.” 

“You’re not making me do anything,” says Holster.

“You know what I mean,” Ransom says, not looking at Holster. 

“I really don’t,” says Holster. “You said earlier that I deserve good things—that I deserve everything. You deserve everything too. You definitely deserve your boyfriend holding you when you cry. That’s baseline shit.” 

“Boyfriend?” Ransom asks.

“Unless you don’t want that,” says Holster. 

“No, I do. I really, really do. Definitely. Just. Sorry. I know I keep making you repeat that you want me over and over. It’s just . . . hard to believe?”

“I’m sorry people haven’t been good to you,” Holster says. “I want to do better than that. I want to make you feel safe and genuinely loved, okay?”

“Okay,” Ransom whispers. 

“Tomorrow I want to talk about your likes and dislikes and boundaries,” says Holster, “but it’s late and you’ve been crying and I’m guessing you’re tired. Do you want to go to bed now? And I do mean separately, like usual.” 

“Yeah.” 

“Can I give you one good night kiss?” Holster asks. It’s a tiny bit annoying to ask before every single act of physical intimacy, but he’s going to make himself do it at least until he’s talked to Ransom about things that might be okay to do without asking. He’d hate to get any of this wrong and make Ransom feel unsafe by accident. That would be way worse than just annoying.

“Yeah,” says Ransom, and their lips meet briefly. Their mouths don’t open and there’s no tongue involved, but it’s a nice kiss, and it feels so much better to know that Ransom is on board with this than it would to take something Ransom didn’t want to give him.


End file.
